Rezatta — VISION DESIGN PHASE

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I would like to help with building the set as a whole, but a lot of my card concepts are too focused on exploring design space and being interesting. I can do whatever you think I'd be good at, but I doubt that I'd have the motivation to write the story.

@DoctorFroOoh that's a cool twist. I'd have to check if the rules can look at the equip cost on a card that's not on a battlefield, I don't think it has ever been done before!

@NokiSkaurNo problem, we actually need both aspects of design: people that focus on making some down-to-earth commons that make the set run smoothly, as well as people who can design interesting higher rarities cards that will get players excited to play the set when they see them!

If you think you'd be good at exploring interesting design space, you could start with very flavourful rares and mythic rares as they're the most likely designs to still fit the set later on ^^ Muses, Renaissance characters, famous masterpieces etc.

Do you have the Muses yet? If not, do you have names and art for them?

I made this for the GW Counters archetype. Any feedback would be appreciated. I thought that the back-and-forth nature of this card could lead to interesting things. You can save your creatures, disable everyone else's, or play politics in EDH. Of course, multiplayer formats make everything more interesting.

Also, I was planning on Nuur being a forested region. I wasn't sure on a name, so I just threw something together.

@NokiSkaurNope, we've explored different directions but haven't settled on one execution of the Muses yet ^^ Any idea is very welcome!

Pila is a really cool card, there's probaby a bit much going on but it's mechanically justified so it could make a cool legend

Nuur sounds very guttural, it's quite different from the names we've been uing so far that are reminiscent of Italian Renaissance ^^ It actually soulds more like the word "light" in arabic though I don't know much about that language (but I got a couple of friends who have that particle in their name, it's very common).

Heya @ningyounk! Glad to see the set still in motion! I know that I haven't really been the most helpful in set design, but after a bit of a break from MTG, I think I'd just like to do something simple to ease me into card making.

I have recently been playing Modern, Standard, and even a little Draft! So I hope that helps me to understand how interaction and power level works in cards in a 60 card constructed format and a limited format.

What specifically do you need help for at the moment? I'd like to help in any way I can

There are some directions at the end of the new thread intro regarding what we could use ^^ Right now here are the hottest topics:

1) Generally useful cards that help sell the set: This is an ongoing work of finding exciting ideas within the global theme of the set, when you hear the theme of the set, what cards would make you excited to play it?

2) Progressing the set skeleton: This includes two aspects:- Helping to shape the design skeleton itself. TezzeretofCarmot21 is currently trying but is having difficulties smoothing his mana curves for the last three colours. You could try following his work or proposing alternatives on what has already been done (it's a step-by-step process so you're going to have to scroll sorry xD)- Making common cards that helps us explore all aspects of our themes and mechanics so we get a better understanding of what works or not during the first playtest (that will happen as soon as we've filled the Common set skeleton). Here's a link to a Google Sheet where our common concepts are stored (tab "Concept cards Commons"): LINK.

3) Discussing story and world building: We have a creative thread as well where the current discussion is characters — Click Here!

@LittleDemonYeap, one of my main concern so far is that the synergy between the mechanics is going to be too low. Now it happens in some sets, but we'll have to work extra hard to make glue cards like these so the set feel more cohesive ^^ It's basically the next step after we figure out our mechanics for good at common.

It also brings up some interesting questions: Do we want "Whenever you gain PSY, compose N" or "Whenever you gain LIFE, Compose N" or "Whenever an art enters the battlefield under your control, you gain PSY" etc.

P.S: By the way I haven't said it yet but you should know you're really good at commons, your concepts are always spot on! =D

Here's a muse. If I end up making the cycle, these are what I'll keep consistent.

1.) The names will always be '___, Muse of (Associated Emotion)'

2.) Mana costs will always be 2(Colour)(Colour)

3.) Defender and Indestructible

4.) They will all exile from the top of your library when the emotion's condition is met

5.) Their third ability will always interact with the exiled cards.

Do you guys have any thoughts on Temeret? He's probably too big for the cost, unless I made him a 4/5. I can't remember right now... But, do you guys like his structure? Do you think the art could fit into the set? Any feedback is much appreciated.

@NokiSkaurON THE CYCLE ITSELF:- I'm really digging the "When EMOTION, exile the top card of your library" + third ability structure, it's pretty original and definitely has interesting design space.- I like defender, it's really weird which is the point.- I'm afraid indestructible will make the Muses too close to Gods though it may still be worth it. Still, I would rather design a new quirky protection ability just for the Muse if possible.- Not all emotion have an easy way to translate their condition into a trigger (believe me I tried, but the Red muse would always trigger 10 times before the Blue muse ever got its second activation.) This probably means we should keep them as condition and use "At the end of your upkeep, if EMOTION, EFFECT" so they're all on a comparable power level.- I'm not super into giving a name to the Muse, it makes it sound even more like a God in my opinion.

ON THE CARD ITSELF:- Blocking triggers feels bad because you're not in control of it. It's one of those abilities that feels more decorative than anything because it will never trigger since the only reason the opponent would decide to attack with this on the battlfield is if they can win on the spot.- The illustration is gorgeous, do we have more of those to make a cycle out of it?- I don't think we can find five effects that respect the colour pie and are as strong as a free spell (let alone two), we'll probably have to think of all five abilities at the same time.

@NokiSkaurI like the idea of returning the card when you cast a COLOUR spell, maybe start returning it to your hand though? To the battlefield, it sounds a bit overpowered.

With the abilities, I think you need to adress some expectations:1) They must be roughly the same level power. Something like White makes tokens, Blue draws cards, Black shrinks, Red deals damage, and Green pumps. Avoiding things like Black drains, Red gets free spells and Blue wins the game.2) The ability needs to actually care about the nature of the card you exiled, otherwise you would just use counters.

Here's an idea that saves space and reduces cost but removes some of the utility. I like the idea of them just being enchantments because it implies that they're mostly concept and only have influence if people give it to them.

@NokiSkaurHmmmmmmmm that's definitely thinking outside the box and I like it, but no, the moment people hear there are Muses in the set, they're expecting creatures. And obviously having them toggle on/off creature state is a no-no because of Theros gods.

There's no way of fitting everything on the card without either doing that or making it look like garbage.

Maybe we could add a clause where we sacrifice the enchantment to create a token that would represent the Muses? For example, we could pay 2bb and sac the enchantment to create a 3/6 black Avatar with Lifelink? I'm not sure if that's too close to toggling...

But they're "larger-than-life" beings that are associated with the tides of the emotion. In any case, they're still creatures. Any having specific tutors is pushing them too much, like an admittance of "they suck," and also feels real bad in drafting.

One of the first characteristics we agreed on for the Muse is that they must not feel like gods, so using the Theros God approach is really breaking the number one rules we had for ourselves.

The last version is actually quite good in its structure, the only issue I have with it is that it's enchantment-only. But it already has everything, even the protection ability is already on it, we just add a P/T and we're done. It's simply that calling a card Muse of Something and not making it a creature is going too much against human expectations, which I fear will create more frustration and confusion than it is worth it. We have to be careful not to design cards just because it's fun from a creator perspective, but because it's exciting from a player perspective. I don't think an enchantment cycle would be as exciting, just think of Commander for instance.

Now there's still a lot of of work to do on the abilities, we need to go find:1) Most importantly, abilities that flavourfully makes you think "This is THAT emotion."2) Abilities that make a balanced cycle.3) Abilities that care about the cards they exile not just by counting them.

I'm not 100% sure it's possible, we'll see. It still gives us more data on what works or not for the Muses ^^

I'm trying to find ways to use exiled cards in cool ways that actually care about the cards themselves but it's really difficult to make the lands not feel like they're a miss when you hit them.

Here's a proof of concept to explain my problem:

Muse of Fears3UU3/7At the beginning of each end step, if you didn't lose life since your last turn, exile the top card of your library.UU, Put a card with converted mana cost X exiled with Muse of Fears into your graveyard: Counter target spell with converted mana cost X or less.Whenever you cast a blue spell, you may return Muse of Fears from your graveyard to your hand.

The point here is to show that it's difficult to make lands matter unless you go full processor (a.k.a. I don't care which card I exile, it's just used as a weird type of ressource.) Even without doing so, the comparison with the Eldrazi Processor may be a bit too obvious by the way. Having effects that scale up without using the cards as resource that you use but just accumulate could prevent the issue, but would also limit the design space even further. This concept can certainly make an interesting one-of, I'm not convinced it's possible to make an exciting and flavourful 5-cards Mythic Rare cycle right now.

I like the recuperation effect (if only the Insectoid Amonkhet Gods didn't exist it would have been 100% perfect.) Maybe we could just go:

At the beginning of your end step, if EMOTION, you may return CARDNAME from your graveyard to its owner's hand.

It's just sooooo close to the Insect Gods it's annoying Maybe we could tweak it a little:

1) If EMOTION, you may cast CARDNAME from your graveyard.2) At the beginning of your end step, if EMOTION, you may put CARDNAME from your graveyard on top of your library.

Then add a cool ETB effect to encourage you to cast them multiple times. They could even have 1-toughness as a defining feature to encourage suiciding them over and over?